--- The Stude's 2013 Changes Page 21-B --- --- Wing &Vertical Stabilizers -- Part III --- |
After getting the main skins attached to the verticals the next item was creating trailing edges that would be as aero as possible. The length of them was determined by what I've heard (true or not) that if you can keep closing surfaces to less than 7 degrees that the air flowing over them shouldn't seperate from them. We wanted the verticals to be as aero as possible since they do present an added frontal area to the car along with whatever wing we also run.
The first item was to attach tabs (strap) to the back edges of the round tubing that would go back to the piece of strap that would make up the back of the trailing edge. Pieces of metal were clamped to the framework to center the tabs and then they were tacked to the round tubing.
Some pieces of square tubing were temporarily clamped to the frame to make sure the pieces of strap were parallel to the sides of the framework and centered.
Straps were place along areas of the trailing edge and checked to make sure they were all in the same plane with a straight edge.
Next a piece of strap was welded to the back side of the straps. The back side of this will be the trailing edge.
Next intermediate pieces of strap were added from the round tubing back to the trailing edge piece.
After one trailing edge was completed the same was done to the vertical on the right above.
Pieces of sheet metal were cut to cover the trailing edges. It was first propped up on the trailing edge with pieces of strap, two bottom arrows, so that it was flat with the main body of the vertical and tacked into place.
The same was done for the top pieces of the trailing edge skin. Welding the skin on like this in front of the round tubing and then bending it down to the trailing edge resulted in a rounded transition from the flat surface to the trailing edge as it bent over the round tubing. I didn't want the backs to just turn a sharp angle where they were attached to the main skin down to the trailing edge. This worked well.
With all of the skin in place all of the perimeters were welded and the total seam between the main skin and the trailing edge skins. This amounted to over 30 feet of welds for the two sides of one vertical.
One large problem was I was making these verticals as Hooley was driving with the car from OK to Utah. Pressed for time I could jump around with the welding to some degree, but it was pretty continuous to finish in time, with the last one finished after Hooley and the car showed up. All of the non-stop welding resulted in a lot of warping of the sides of the verticals.
Bill and Frank above showed up from Missouri before the car did and were stuck with the job of trying to make flat surfaces out of warped 20 gauge steel. They got a start on the job but after the car showed up had to get on the road to meet other friends at the salt. Thanks guys for all that you did.
After they left Charlie took over the job with yet more bondo.
With the car now inside the shop he had to move his bodywork outside under the overhang there.
He would of liked to of spent another day or so perfecting the surfaces, but we had to finish the car to get to the salt.
The verticals were attached to the tops of the fenders.
On one side and ....
.... then the other along with the new wing (more on it on the next page).
While this was taking place Hooley, Oklahoma Ken and George figured out why the car was smoking so badly (hole in the one intake track of the head) and Mark was doing wiring and plumbing and Michigan Ken was helping me make a new smaller wing and Charlie went on to help also.
We figured from the time Bill and Frank showed up on Sunday and we finally left for the salt the next Saturday there was over 400 man hours of work done on the car at my place. Most days some or all of us were working from 5:30 in the morning to after midnight at night.
Things were a mess at times with som much work going on at the same time but it was a great team effort.
Friday night, when we should of already been in our pits on the salt the paint gun came out and .....
.... I sprayed some primer and orange on the new verticals and small wing. Here we are finishing up at 1 a.m.. George took the picture with Ken to the right and Hooley holding some paper over the rear window to keep over spray off of it while I tried to blend the new paint into the existing paint.
For most of the painting I wore a 'supplied air' mask and these guys were outside trying to stay awake.
It would of been great to of had the time to put on a little more bondo and then some high-build primer and then blocked out the surfaces a couple times but they didn't come out that bad thanks to Bill, Frank and Charlie. Over the winter they and the rest of the cars bodywork will probably be repainted better.
Above is a picture of the car on the salt taken by Ruth after one of the license runs. I think it is a better perspective of the verticals/wing in relation to the rest of the car.
Another picture taken by Tom.
